Superbowl antisemitism advert is late 20th century response to 21st century problem
The motive - fighting Jew-hate, is obviously a good one. But the need to directly involve the younger generations in combating this bigotry has never been more apparent
On Sunday, television viewers in America will be able to watch $15 million dollars put in a blender, followed by someone pressing the “on” button.
I exaggerate, obviously – but not by that much. $15 million dollars – far more than most of us will make in our lifetimes – will be spent by one person, for one minute. Why? Because we’re not talking about an ordinary person, or an ordinary minute. Robert Kraft is a Jewish multibillionaire, and the minute is an ad during the Superbowl, due to be watched by more than 120 million people. The New England Patriots, owned by Kraft, will be one of the teams playing.
The ad runs as follows:
A nerdy-looking kid is walking down a school corridor, when a passing student bumps into him. He continues on his way, aware that others are looking at him, whispering and laughing. When he reaches his locker and takes his bag off his back, he finds that a yellow post-it note saying “Dirty Jew” has been placed on his bag. Suddenly, a blue post-it note is placed on top of it. “Do not listen to that”, says a tall African American student. “I know how it feels”, he says, placing another blue post-it note on his chest. The words “2 in 3 Jewish teens have experienced antisemitism” appear on screen, as heart-warming piano keys contend with a sobbing cello. Watchers are then encouraged to share a hashtag with a blue square to “show you care”.
The Jewish student moves forward, presumably towards those who put the note on his bag, only for his new friend to hold his arm and tell him that “they’re not worth it, bro.” The Jewish kid responds, “yeah, you’re right, I was trippin” (no, I’m not joking, he really says that) as they walk off. We find out that the Jewish kid is called David. The African American kid? Bilal.
The most charitable thing I can say about this ad is that if it encourages even a few people to stand up for Jews, then it’s perhaps not a total waste of money. But the reaction of Jews to the ad in online spaces has been almost uniformly negative, and it’s not hard to see why.
The script is more wooden than your average shul bimah. The concept of using hashtags to advance social justice campaigns should be left in the 2010s where it belongs. The idea of a Jewish guy and black Muslim guy teaming up to counter the (white) racist bullies feels absurdly hackneyed in an era where black Muslim Youtubers can team up with far right Hispanic white supremacists to perform Nazi salutes as they sing a song called “Heil Hitler”, released by one of the most successful African American music artists of the 21st century.
Plenty of Jewish viewers are also smarting at the not-particularly-subtle message in the ad that they should simply walk away from antisemitic bigotry, rather than standing up to it. Jews in school are not, on the whole, having someone stick a note to their bags. They’re getting assaulted by people screaming at them that they’re ‘baby-killers’.
I do not have $15 million. But I’d be willing to bet a little bit of the small amount of money I do have that no one under the age of 35 was a major part of the process which led to this ad’s production. And I’m pretty sure I’d win.
The painful thing behind this ad is that the motive is obviously a good one. A wealthy Jewish person wants to fight antisemitism. And I’ve spent more than half this piece criticising the ad – the obvious riposte to that is that it’s easy to just condemn something without offering an alternative.
Without wanting to go full Tevye, if I had that kind of money and wanted to fight antisemitism, what would I do? I’d engage directly with Gen Z and Gen Alpha. I’d announce a $15 million annual initiative to fund the best ideas from our younger generations on how to tackle antisemitism. God knows our community is full of young, bright, ambitious people with ideas – why not give them the chance to make those ideas a reality? Make it like Dragons’ Den (Shark Tank, for American viewers) and invite people to come in and present their full and detailed plans on how to combat Jew-hatred. Many of those ideas won’t be good ones. Some will be. And a few could be game-changers.
Instead of funnelling money into ads, or into legacy Jewish organisations in America which have, regrettably, dropped the ball in so many different ways – empower those who know how young people think because they are young themselves.
This is not the first Superbowl ad that Kraft’s Blue Square Alliance Against Hate has run, but it really should the last. It’s time to stop coming up with late 20th-century solutions to 21st-century problems.
And best of luck to the Patriots, Robert.
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